This is an awkward one to try and get an answer to. Is your SEO likely to tell you if they undertake any practices that are against the Google guidelines? Probably not. After all, this is their business - to try and trick others in believing that they can offer real benefits.
The State of SEO
As we all know, SEO is a huge market with clients forking out billions each year to help then gain some rankings for their chosen keywords and phrases. However, the problem with this is that the vast majority will look to the SEO for good advice that is going to benefit them and not cause them harm. So how do you know what the advice you receive is going to do for you?
Stupidly, some people will announce this fact by sending you e-mails advertising the fact they have huge link networks. For example, here is a mail I got from someone on LinkedIn just a couple of days ago…
Now, correct me if I am wrong (and I’m not) but Google doesn’t advocate the use of link networks and will shut them down as soon as they find out about them. He tried to get around this by calling them “Ads”… then why do I need to know that they are on many different IP’s? (Rhetorical question).
How do you protect yourself
Fortunately, there are a large number of ethical companies out here in SEO land and there are a number of places you can go to get real information and ask if what is being done is the right or wrong thing Here are a few of them…
- SEOMoz
- Webmaster World
- Google Webmaster Forums
Now, I am not in the habit of ‘Name and Shame’ but the individual above has actually annoyed me somewhat. I, and many other SEO’s, will put in many many hours of real work into making a site successful through a myriad of ethical SEO techniques, and people like this will come along, place a link to you from 30 blogs, and suggest that they are doing work for you. Sad thing is, these sorts of people will remove you as soon as you stop paying. With that, your benefit dies! Not to mention if Google finds out about the network, you will probably get a hit off them as well for being a part of it.
For now, I will not mention the name of the company, but that all depends on the reply that I get back from them. This is an old black-hat technique that should not be practiced any more.
JAN
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I think more people can find this one hehe…
About the Author
Written by Social SEO expert Andy Drinkwater. Andy has been involved in Social SEO & Social Media since 2001 and Copywriting since 1991 and is an active blogger on these subjects.